Press Release

USW Women of Steel Crusade against Toxic Trade
Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Tuesday, May 20th

2:00 pm

VI Taxi Association Building Clubhouse

Estate Contant # 68

St. Thomas, Virgin Islands 00802

(St. Thomas, VI) – The United Steelworkers (USW) Women of Steel (WOS) is hosting a lead screening session to educate families about potentially toxic products and the bad trade policies that are allowing them into our homes. The product screenings is part of the USW’s international “Protect Our Kids – Stop Toxic Imports” campaign.

Members of the community are invited to bring toys and other imported items to the VI Taxi Association Building Clubhouse, where they will be screened for lead and where the USW will provide safety and educational material.

“I’ve been scared to death for the children after hearing about lead on toys like Thomas the Tank Engine, Barbie, Dora the Explorer, Big Bird – and on baby bibs, too,” said Donna Shaver a member of the USW’s Women of Steel, who are conducting the lead-screening tests here and across the United States and Canada. “We’re hoping our campaign helps find poisoned products so we can get them out of our homes, but we also want to draw attention to the root of the problem – bad trade deals. These cheap goods from countries like China have an expensive price that is threatening the health and safety of our children and families.”

The union is calling upon Congress to support the U.S. Food and Product Responsibility Act, introduced in the Senate by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and in the House by Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind. This legislation would safeguard Americans against toxic food and products by requiring companies producing the goods and importers importing them to take responsibility.

Over the past few months, the USW Women of Steel have conducted lead screening tests similar to the St, Thomas event in more than 25 cities across North America to educate families about this threat of lead contaminated toys and other products.

“Products we made safe through regulation of U.S. manufacturers are coming in poisonous through a back door in trade policy,” said Dr. Herbert Needleman, a University of Pittsburgh professor who pioneered lead research and treatments 30 years ago. Dr. Needleman said he was deeply disappointed that “decades of progress through research have been reversed.”

USW President Leo W. Gerard has spearheaded the second Steelworkers “Get the Lead Out” campaign. “The USW has a strong legacy of fighting to protect American families, playing a key role to ‘get the lead out’ of most products and goods by the end of the 1970s,” Gerard recalled. “Our nation is at another crossroads right now and it is time to change course and reverse the influx of toxic goods finding their way onto our store shelves.”

More information about the union’s project can be found at www.stoptoxicimports.org. The Web site provides information and tools to deal with failed trade and inadequate regulatory policies that allow dangerous products to threaten our children and jobs.

“This threat to the health of our children and families is a direct result of unregulated trade and it will continue to grow until these flawed trade policies are addressed,” Gerard said.

The Steelworkers’ campaign is supported by a broad array of consumer and environmental organizations, including the Blue-Green Alliance (www.bluegreenalliance.org), the Public Health Institute and the Center for Environmental Health (www.cehca.org).

Beginning with the recall of 1.5 million Thomas the Tank Engine toys in June last year, more than 6 million toys have been recalled for high levels of lead. Lead can cause a variety of health problems, including learning disabilities, stunted growth, kidney damage and even death. Other dangerous imports include faulty medicine, steel, and tires, and toxic lipstick, toothpaste, seafood, children’s lunchboxes and pet food.

The USW represents 850,000 workers in the United States and Canada employed in the industries of metals, rubber, chemicals, paper, oil refining and the service sector. For more information: www.usw.org/.

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MEDIA ADVISORY Contact: Debbie Hayes Cook

May 19, 2008 615-585-0803 Cell